Towline connected to burning ship to shift it from Kerala coast: Official
As the fire on the Singapore-flagged cargo ship containing hazardous and flammable cargo off the coast of Kerala continued on the third day, a joint team of the Indian Coast Guard (ICG) and the MERC Salvage Master connected a tow line to the still-burning ship as part of efforts to move it away from the Indian coastline, officials familiar with the matter said on Wednesday.
Though the blaze on the Singapore-flagged MV Wan Hai 503 has been largely contained, the fire persists in the inner decks and areas near the fuel tanks, said ICG officials said.
Since the vessel, carrying 122,128 metric tonnes of fuel and hundreds of containers including hazardous cargo, continued to drift within the Indian Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ) around 42 nautical miles from Beypore port in Kerala, officials have deemed it important to douse the fire and parallelly tow the ship away from the coast.
Despite unfavourable weather conditions, an ICG chopper was able to winch five members of the salvage team and an aircrew diver onto the forward bay of the burning vessel so as to connect the ship to a tug boat, an official said.
'With the assistance of the ICG, the MERC crew was able to get onto the ship while it was still burning and connect a tow line using the tug boat 'Water Lily'. It's a big achievement since fire is still reported to be raging within the inner decks. It was a difficult operation,' Sekhar Lukose Kuriakose, member secretary of the Kerala state disaster management authority (SDMA), said.
Another official said that five ships of the ICG, two Dornier aircraft, and one chopper are involved in the operation, along with two vessels provided by the Directorate General of Shipping. The vessel's owners have appointed a salvage team to assist the ICG, while the Indian Air Force has been requested to provide further aerial support.
The Indian National Centre for Ocean Information Services (INCOIS) said on Tuesday that the containers which fell into the sea from the Singapore-flagged vessel were likely to drift towards sections of the Kerala coast, Tamil Nadu coast and even Sri Lanka based on wind and ocean patterns.
Of the 1,754 containers onboard the vessel, at least 157 are reported to be carrying hazardous cargo including pesticides, liquid and solid chemicals, styrene and other forms of micro-plastics. While it is not clear how many containers have fallen into the sea, officials have confirmed several of them in the water and many of them burst open due to the fire.
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